Pbocess of opening and pbepabing artificial staple fibeb fob spinning



Dec. 23, 1930. M. F. THOMA 1,785,823

PROCESS OF OPENING AND PREPARING ARTIFICIAL STAPLE FIBER FOR SPINNING Filed Feb. 8, 1929 2 Sheets-Sheet 1 FIG. E.

FIG. 1.

OR SPINNING 101. F. THOMA PROCESS OF OPENING AND PREPARING ARTIFICIAL STAPLE FIBER F Filed Feb. 8, 1929 2 Sheets-Sheet 2 lllllllllllll Q mIm Patented Dec. 23, 1930 UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE MEINRAD F. THOMA, OF FITGHBURG, MASSACHUSETTS PROCES S OPENING AND PREPARING ARTIFICIAL STAPLE FIBER FOR SPINNING Application filed February 8, 1929. Serial No. 338,561.

The present invention relates to a process of preparing for spinning artificial silk fibers.

with or without the addition of animal or vegetable fibers. 6 One of its objects is to provide a new modified artificial silk fiber which possesses a spin-technical condition, i. e. which can easily be spun.

Another object of my invention is to pro- 10 vide such alterations of the usual spinning procedure and spinning machines as have proved suitable in thespinning of threads from my modified artifical silk fibers.

Additional objects of my invention are the new fibers and the new threads obtainable by spinning my modified artificial silk fibers with or without the addition of animal or vegetable fibers.

Further objects of my invention will be seen from the detailed specification following hereafter.

Itn's known in the art that the artificial silk fiber cannot be spun as easily as the animal or vegetable fibers. The cotton fiber, for instance, possesses a surface structure which is very advantageous for spinning. As seen under the microscope, it forms fibers with corkscrew forms and slightly crinkled fibers. Due to the rough surface and cork screw'efiect, the friction model and consequently the tensile strength of the yarn spun from the cotton fiber is high. The tensile strength of any spun yarn, as is known, corresponds to the friction of fiber vs. fiber under the pressure of the twist.

Careful study shows that the substantial strength in a spun cotton yarn is used only about -20% and that the tensile strength of any spun yarn is especially influenced by the friction of fiber vs. fiber.

Contrary to cotton fiber, the artificial silk fibergenerally forms masses of a harsh, resistant character, the individual fibers adherso that it is ditlicult or impossibe to spin them correctly without any suitable pretreatment, even if the fibers could be separated from each other.

Now I have found that it is possible to subject the artificial silk fiber to a suitable preing to each other and being perfectly straight inachine in equal proportions of any len that the manufacturer desires.

The purpose of my chemical treatment is, as stated before, to take the staple fibers as they are shipped from artificial silk producing it and cutting it then by a special cutting I ing plants and subject them to a bath which will convert these harsh masses of fibers into fibers not adhereing to each other but having a practical and spm-technical condition, as for instance cotton or other textile raw materials.

For this purpose I make a liquid which, to 7 100 gallons of water, contains 3 gallons of a softening ingredient, 1. gallon of an ingredient for leaving the fiber in a crinkled condition, gallon of an ingredient for increasing the hygroscopicity of the fiber, and to 5 gallons of an ingredient for improving the ifieiel of the textile goods formed from the er. A preferred mixing bath is as follows:

240 lbs. of water; 60 lbs. of potassium soap 60 lbs. (if glycerin; 14 lbs. of soap flakes; 1 lb.

f the above mixture I take lbs. and mix them with 2250 lbs. of water. The artificial staple fiber is soaked in it for a considerable length of time, say 20 to 25 minutes, at a mod eratelliy warm temperature, for instance, 40 to 45 lrVhen fully treated, it is taken out and dried. After drying, the fibers will be found separated and in a fine soft condition with a silk luster and crinkly. in form so that they canbespun.

The two kinds ,of soap'ar'e' not. used for cleaning purposes, as the staple fibers are received in a clean condition and are still'very for softening the fiber. Thesoda or soda ash is used to produce a crinkling of each fiber when finally dried. The pinol gives luster and humidification, thatis, it holds some water in the fiber even when dried by the ordinary processes. The acid improves the feel of the fiber and the fabric produced therefrom.

Inplace of the above substances I can use f r softening: monopol oil, monopol brilliant o1 sulfonated castor oil, sulfonated tallow, sulfonated olive oil, oleic acid, tetrapole, verapole or trichlorethane. To produce luster, can use: enordrine, perpentol, a mixture of alkyl naphthalene sulfonic acid with tetrahydronaphthalene or glucose. To hold the moisture, hygroscopicity, the following can be used magnesium chloride, calcium chloride, zinc chloride, glucose, acotine or glycerine. Acetic or formic acid can be used in an aftert-reatment to improve the feeling of the goods. j I

It will be seen, therefore, that by the use of the substances which are specified as preferable, I secure the several results indicated above. It Will also be seen that the several equivalents mentioned to indicate the classes of my invention. Especially, I do not wish it)- be limited to the exact ingredients specified aoove.

Whereas the chemical treatment above described is to be considered as a part of the invention described in this specification, I wish it to be understood that I have claimed this specific feature of my invention in my cogending application Serial No. 157,421, filed ecember27, 1926.

It is obvious that by this chemical treatment the artificial silk fiber is modified to a certain degree. However," this modification does not go so far that it can already be considered as satisfactory from the spin-technical point of view. In consequence thereof I add some further steps to my pre-treatment by which the artificial silk fiber is still further modified. I prefer to press the artificial silk fibers to a certainidegree when taking them out of the chemical bath as described in height. I leave them in this state for about 10 hours. It is quite obvious that the height of the piles as well as the time of storage may vary within wide ranges without altering the principle underlying this step.

WVhile storing the artificial silk fiber cakes in this way, the fibers are subjected to the pressure of theirown weight, in consequence of which they are intimately pressedv together, whereby a certain physical change of their structure is effected. Under a microscope it can be easily seen that they are bent over irregularly according to their respective intermixture in the cake. Furthermore, it can be seen under the microscope that their surface shows the imprint of those artificial silk fibers that had been. pressing against them.

I After storing the fibers I pass the fibers through a heated room, at the entrance, or at the exit, or at both of which I subject the fiber cake to an opening process. This preliminary process is carried out, for instance, by introducing the moist fibersin the drying device by means of a revolving needle roll cylinder or a similar device and by guiding the dried threads at the exit of the dryer pose of this stage of my process is on the one hand to open the fiber cakes, on the other hand to effect by the action of the heat and under the influence of the chemicals which still adhere to the fibers from the chemical bath before described, a thorough cginkling of the artificial silk fibers. This is to be considered one of the most important technical effects of my process.

The heat to be applied in this stage may vary within wide limits. I prefer a temper-.

ature of about 120*200 Fahrenheit. Of course, the temperature depends on and is to be chosen according to the working conditions employed in the previous stages of my process. s

The artificial silk fibers having passed through the before described stages of my process are modified as to most of their propertiesto such a degree that they are to be considered entirely new and valuable products. Whereas the usual artificial silk fiber posses a glassy surface and a straight structure, my modified artificial silk fiber has a very soft feel, is pliable to,a very high degree and, what is most important from a spin-technical point of view,'has a cottonlike structure, Under the microscope one can see that it is crinkled in a corkscrew-like manner like the cotton fiber.- Furthermore, one can easily recognize the changes brought about by the storing of the artificial silk fiber. under the pressure of the moist piles. As described before, for instance,.the imprints on the surface, etc. show that my modified artificial silk fiber is similar to the cotton fiber insofar as during the stapling process the material opens bloom'ingly and flushingly in a manner similar to that in which cotton fibers open up, whereas the usual artibefore described my artificial silk fiber obpeated;

tains a certain degree of static electricity; in order to eliminate this highly undesirable feature, I take care that it is moistened to a certain degree, either before entering the spinning machinery or else during one of the first stages of the spinning procedure.

By this moistening-process" the difficulties arising during the spinning process as a consequence of the static electricity are eliminated either completely or to the. greatest part.

To lessen to almost nothing the static electricity of the prepared raw material the following operations must be" gone through.

After the material is slightly opened by pin aprons, the materialis placed in bins where it remains for about, forty-eight hours under live steam which does away with any static electricity that is still in the material.

The percentage of regain during the raw' material state'rises from 15% to 22%. Furthermore/I take care that the air of the rooms in which the fibers are worked up is sufficiently moistened by water vapors.

I also want to get through the bins an evener mix and evener blend and I also want to get an evenness from a chemical standpoint because during the first rocess of treating the raw material, the ath gradually weakens until it is renewed; therefore, the material treated by a new bath compared with the first bath is slightly different, but in mixing about one days production this dif- In order to spin threads from my modified artificial silk fiber, I subject it to the following usual steps of the cotton spinning process 1 1. Opening the "fibers which may be re- 2. Carding of the already doubled lap;

3. Doubling 4: or 6 card slivers and stretching;

4. JDoubling; again and stretching the slivers in such a manner that the crinkling of the fiber obtained by the chemical processis eliminated an'd the luster of the origi'nalgartificial fiber is restored;

"5. Twisting the slivers in Yarns of different numbers are obtainable in this manner.

the usual manres'ents a sectional view of the machinery for transforming my pre-treated artificial silk fibers into a uniform lap; Fig. 2 shows members k and Z on an enlarged scale,- Fig. 3

represents a sectional view and Fig. 4 a horizontal View of the drawing frames; Fig. 5 shows the guide '0 on an enlarged scale.

The ordinary cotton opening machinery has a large rotating blade'beaterfor opening and cleaning the cotton material. The fact that my prepared artificial silk material contains no impurities, makes the cleaning proct ess a minor one. The material coming from the bins is fed on the aprons by feeding rolls rotating to a cylinder with alternating notches thereon. The material thrown out is transferred into a web and by a special apparatus, known in the art, a lap is formed.

This part of my machine is illustrated in Figures'l and 2 of the attached drawing:

The feeding apron a and a fluted roll 1) introduces the material to the ordinary feeding rolls 0; the feeding rolls present the materials to the revolving needle roll cylinder 03. Of course, instead ofa revolving needle 'rol l cylinder, one may use, for lnstance, a

slowly revolving needle beater. The revolving needle roll cylinder cl and the fluted roll I) are mounted in the same position. Under the feeding apron or on any other suitable place there is a steam pipe 9 which is adapted to allow steam to pass over and through the material. Live steam escaping from the steam pipe is passed over and through the material by means of the draft coming from the ventilator f in the beating section of the machine; e is a screen allowing the steam to come in contact with the fibers. The steam is used to eliminate the static electricity which arises by the friction of the revolving needles of the cylinder 03 against the fibers. Furthermore, by the introduction of live steam the fibers are softened and become more flexible and practically no harm is done in the opening process to the sensitive fibers; hl and k2 represent perforated air cylinders allowing the draft coming from the ventilator' f to pass through them and guiding the material to these cylinders; 71 represents a air of delivery rolls.

11 front of the calendar rolls (m1, m2, m3,

usual Way on the roll 0. The material sticks v 1 very tightly on the lap stick 0 on account of In the drawing hereto annexed, Fig. -1 rep its natural softness and it would be practically impossible to pull the lap stick 0 out of the laps. Therefore, I cover the lap sticks with a sheet-iron shell p which fits inside of the laps.

In order to insure the uniformity of the laps before passing them through the carding machinery, I prefer to pass several of the laps which are placed one on top of the other once more through my opening apparatus.

On the carding machinery no particular changes are necessary. However, care must be taken that the teeth of the lickerins are not too sharp so that the material will not. become scratched on the surface. It is well worth while to introduce a closed plate instead of the opening lickerin screen.

The drawing frames are changed from the regular construction as shown in Figures 3 and 4. The slivers are run in the usuahform out of cans which are advantageously fittedwith springs to the feeding rollers r. v The drawing mechanism itself is ordinary; the

cleaning device is changed insofar as the cleaning cloth 8 is so arranged as to cover the upper outside part of the two outside lever rollers, i. e. the two lever rollers which correspond to the steel rollers t and a. It is clearly shown during the run that if the cleaning cloth does not cover the lever rolls the material would stick on the rolls. Between the rollers t and w is the guide '0 for the purpose of holding the webtogether or to overlap the edges of the web. The guide '0 is shown in Figure 5 on an enlarged scale. Between the delivery rolls t and the intake 00 is a bridge a .to support the web. The webs thus obtained are twisted in the known manner on flying machines. The twist and the number of the yarn may vary within wide limits.

The above described machinery may be used in spinning'my modified artificial silk fiber alone and in connection with cotton or other staples of about the same length. If,

- for instance, a mixing from my modified artificial silk fiber with'schappe, silk, hemp or,

ramie is desired,a special mechanical device must be introduced to break the long staples of the schappe silk or the other material to about-the same length as the staple fibers. This breaking is done through roller pairs, of gradually higher speeds. The modified artificial silk covers'the material that should be broken. The schappe silk, treated in this manner, will first be stretched out before the fiber breaks and would snap and form a nep manufactured from staple fiber-treated according to my modified process, against a 3 yarn spun 'according to the hitherto known processes, is as follows:

The yarn spun from the treated material shows much higher lusterdue to the fact that through the treatment the fiberbecomes softer and. more flexible so that the position of the fibers in the single yarn is more parallel 1,7saa2s and the better parallelization I have in the yarn the better light reflection I get and hence more luster. Furthermore, the treated yarn,

during the spinning processes can be done in a normal way while with an untreated material and through the large amountof static electricity the drafting processes are disturbed. Fiber filled with static electricity sticks all the time on the drafting rolls and forms bunches and reshlts in an uneven yarn. The strength of the treated yarn is about 25-40% higher with the same twists and spun under the same conditions as yarn from the untreated materials, because by the amount of softness and amount of friction in the treated material the resulting friction of fiber vs. fiber in the treated yarn is much greater than the friction of the fiber vs. fiber in the untreated material. The yarnspun from the treated material has an entirely different hand as it appears absolutely silky and soft against the yarn spun from the untreated material which has a harsh and woody feel.

The yarn spun from a mix of artificial silk fiber with cotton has an advantage of a higher breaking strength both wet and ,dry. The dyeing remains unchanged. 7 I Mixed with schappe silk it-has a higher breaking strength; improvement in the. silky hand; higher resistance against water, crossdyed effects in one process dyeing.

Mixed with wool it has greatadvantages of a cross-dye effect and of, a cheaper product ance of the wool and modified silk can hardly be noticed.

Mixtures with flax, hemp and ramie more orless for the purpose of getting a yarn with more resistance in the breaking strength wet and dry, and to bring a hemp or flax yarn with a certain amount of -modified staple fiber to a higher standard.

Iclaim:

1.v The yarns being spun from the artificial silk fiberbefore described, possessing a silky and soft feel and having a strength being about 25-40% higher than the strength of yarns spun from untreated artificial fibers.

artificial staple fiber witha moderately warm solution containing an artificial silk fiber softening agent, an. artificial silk fiber crinkling agent, an agent for imparting hygroartificial staple fiber with a moderately warm solution containing an artificial silk fiber softening agent, an artificial silk fiber crinkling agent, an agent for imparting hygrosco ic'ity to artificial silk fiber and an a ent or improving the feel of artificial silk fi er, pressing the thus treated fibers to a certain degree to form fiat cakes, piling these fiat cakes up to heaps of about 4 to 5 feet, leaving them in this state for about 10 hours, whereby they are intimately pressed together by the pressure of their own weight and whereby a certain physical change of the structure of the fibers is effected, and subjecting them to a drying procedure.

4. The process of preparing artificial silk fiber for spinning which comprises treating artificial staple fiber with a moderately warm solution containing an artificial silk fiber softening agent, an artificial silk fiber crinkling agent, an agent for imparting hygroscopicity to artificial silk fiber and an agent for improving the feel of artificial silk fiber,

pressing the thus treated fibers to a certain degree to form flat cakes, piling these fiat cakes up to heaps of about 4 to 5 feet,leaving them in this state for about 1O.hours,

, whereby they are intimately pressed together then subjecting them to a drying procedure.

by the pressure of their own weight and whereby a certain physical change of thestructure of the fibers is efiected, subjecting 40 the flat fiber cakes to an opening procedure in which they are opened to a flaky form and 5. The processof preparing artificial silk fiber for spinning which comprises treating artificial staple fiber with a moderately warm solution containing an artificial silk fiber softening agent, an artificial silk fiber crinkling agent, an agent for imparting hygro- 'scopicity to artificial silk fiber and an agent for improving the feel of artificial silk fiber, pressing the thus treated fibers to a certain degree to form fiat cakes, piling these fiat cakes up to heaps of about 4 to 5 feet, leaving them in this state for about 10 hours, whereby they are intimately pressed together by the pressure of their own weight and whereby a certain physical change of the structure of the fibers is effected, subjecting the fiat fiber jecting them to a drying procedure at a tem--v cakes to an opening rocedure in which they are opened to a fia form and then subperature of about to 120 C.

6. The process of preparing artificial silk fiber for spinning which comprises treating artificial staple fiber with a moderately cakes up to heaps of about 4 to 5 feet, leaving them in this state for about 10 hours,

whereby they are intimately pressed to gether by the pressure of their own weight and whereby a certain physical change of the structure of the fibers is effected, subjecting the flat fiber cakes to an opening procedare in which they are opened to a flaky form, subjecting them to a drying procedure and repeating the opening procedure.

' 7. The process of preparing artificial silk fiber for spinning which comprises treating artificial staple fiber with a moderately Warm solution containing an artificial silk fiber softening agent, an artificial silk fiber crinkling agent, an agent for imparting hygroscopicity to artificial silk fiber and an agent for improving the feel of artificial silk fiber, pressing the thus treated fibers to a certain degree to form fiat cakes, piling these flat cakes up to heaps of about 4 to 5 feet, leaving them in this state for about 10 hours, whereby they are intimately pressed together by the pressureoftheir own weight and whereby a certain physical change of the structure of the fibers is effected, subjecting the fiat fiber cakes to an opening procedure in which they are opened to a flaky form, subjecting them to a drying procedure in which the fibers are not completely dried and repeating the opening and drying procedures.

8. The process of preparing artificial silk fiber for spinning which comprises treating artificial staple fiber with a moderately warm solution containing an artificial silk fiber softening agent, an artificial silk fiber crinkling agent, an agent for imparting hygroscopicity to artificial silk fiber and an agent for improving the feel of artificial silk fiber, 'pressing the thus treated fibers to a certain degree to form fiat cakes, piling these fiat cakes up to heaps of about 4 to 5 feet, lea'ving them in this state for about 10 hours, whereby they are intimately pressed together by the pressure of their own weight and whereby a certain physical change of the structure of the fibers is effected, subjecting the flat fiber cakes to an opening procedure in which they are opened to a flaky form, subjecting them to a drying procedure and repeating the opening procedure, placing the thus obtained material in bins and subjecting it to the influence of live steam for about 48 hours, wherebythe static electricity is elim- 4 pliable to a high degree and being obtainable according to the process described in claim 2 10. As new products the modified artificial staple fibers possessing, a crinkled, cottonlike structure, being bent irregularly, showing on the surface the imprints caused by pressing other fibers under a certain pressure against the surface, having a soft feel and being pliable to a high degree and being obtainable according to the process described in claim 3.

11. As new products the modified artificial staple fibers possessing a crinkled, cottonlike structure, being bent irregularly, showing on the surface the imprints caused by pressing other fibers under a certain pressure against the surface, having a soft feel, being pliable to a high degree and being free from any substantial amount of static electricity and being obtainable according to the process descr bed in claim 8.

In tes imony whereof, I aflix my signature.

MEINRAD FRIEDRICH messes 

